Gazipur Agricultural University

Gazipur Agricultural University (GAU) is a public university at South Salna, Gazipur, about 40 kilometres from Dhaka. It was established in 1998 and was formerly called Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU). In 2023 it had 1,991 students and 229 teachers, 135 of them with a PhD.

Rankings

• THE World University Rankings 2027: band 1001-1200, national position 5 (the previous edition listed 801-1000 at position 1).
• THE Asia University Rankings 2026: band 401-500, national position 5.
• Ulkaa Edu Rank 2027: position 20, computed from the published methodology. Ulkaa had data for about 81 percent of its indicators for this university.

The university was established on 22 November 1998. It grew out of the Institute of Post-Graduate Studies in Agriculture (IPSA), which itself began in 1983 as the Bangladesh College of Agricultural Sciences.

It was first named Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University and was renamed Gazipur Agricultural University in 2025.

Japan International Cooperation Agency grant aid and technical cooperation supported IPSA from 1978 as a centre of excellence for agricultural education and research. IPSA became an autonomous institution and started credit-based MS and PhD programmes in 1991. When it became a university in 1998 it kept the postgraduate programmes and added undergraduate study. The Bachelor of Science in Agriculture started in 2005, the Faculty of Fisheries was set up in 2008, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science in 2009, which began the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree, and the Faculty of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development in 2012.

Since 2019, undergraduate applicants have applied through a common cluster examination shared by seven agricultural universities. The university took in 626 first-year students in 2023 and 670 in 2022.

The cluster system sets its own dates and rules each year, so follow the current circular on gau.edu.bd. Postgraduate candidates apply for MS and PhD programmes within their field. This page does not list tuition figures.

GAU has seven faculties: Postgraduate Studies, Agriculture, Fisheries, Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Forestry and Environment, and Agricultural and Bioresources Engineering. The Faculty of Agriculture has 14 departments and Fisheries has five.

It offers MS and PhD degrees in specialised agricultural disciplines. Ulkaa has no programme rows for GAU yet, so use the departments listed on the official website for the current subject list.

English is the medium of instruction, and study follows a term-based course credit system with regular assignments, quizzes, two midterms and a final examination in each course.

OpenAlex records 2,718 works from GAU over the five years to 2025, with 31,670 citations in that window (11.65 per work) and an h-index of 154 as of 2026. About 40 percent of recent papers have an international co-author.

The university has released 44 improved crop varieties and publishes four peer-reviewed journals in agricultural research. Its 50 acres of experimental farmland support field trials.

The campus occupies about 190 acres, including 50 acres of experimental farmland, so students work close to fields and ponds.

Three men's halls, Mawlana Bhashani Hall, Shaheed Ahsanullah Master Hall and Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Hall, serve male students, and three more halls serve female students. With 1,991 students in 2023 it is a small campus compared with the large general universities. Clubs and events are listed on the official website.

Wikipedia lists the Yamada Yoshio Library, the Dr. M. Wazed Mia Central Laboratory, the Begum Sufiya Kamal Auditorium with about 1,000 seats, a central mosque, a health centre, an eco park with an ex-situ gene bank and a lake view study park. A regular bus service runs from the campus to Farmgate in Dhaka twice a day, and a shorter service goes to Joydebpur.